


Wash on Monday

by elizajane



Series: 25 Ways to Kiss a Naked Man [2]
Category: Eureka
Genre: Established Relationship, Feelings, Humor, M/M, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Nathan ... showering. Together. Things might be getting serious. [Nathan POV]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wash on Monday

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 just hit two hundred views, so it seems appropriate to post part 2. Since I had it queued and ready to go!
> 
> As I'm posting these, I realize there's a run of Nathan POV at the beginning of this series. Jack's perspective surfaces eventually, I promise!

The first time Jack moves to wash Nathan’s hair in the shower, Nathan (he is not proud of this, in retrospect) has a moment: “Hey -- what? What are you doing?!” the tone of his voice equal parts surprise and alarm.

He ducks away from the shorter man’s hands closing in on his scalp, managing to get water up his nose in an utterly undignified fashion.

Carter pauses, shampoo running out between his fingers, with that look of befuddlement he often wears when the denizens of Eureka are acting in ways he finds unfathomable.

(It’s a look Nathan reacts to viscerally -- with a fervent desire to both slap the man in the face and fuck him up against the nearest solid surface. If only because he's learned that Carter never looks befuddled in the middle of sex; Jack Carter makes love with intensity of purpose, with a desire to _know_ , that would make most GD scientists weep into their triple lattes. Nathan is pleased with the knowledge that he’s the only scientist at Global Dynamics -- the only scientist in the whole of North America -- on planet earth --  who possesses this information about Sheriff Carter.)

“Hair?” Jack gestures with the shampoo-y hand, “I was going to wash it?”

“What for?” Nathan isn’t proud of the slight note of panic in his voice. But it just seems -- weird. Weirdly intimate. The last time he remembers having someone else wash his hair would have been back in …‘84?

He’d been six.

Jack just grins and says, “Your hair needs washing. And trust me: this is gonna feel good.”

And it does: Jack’s fingers running up from the base of his skull, thumbs skirting around the back of his ears, massaging the pressure points at Nathan's temples that Alison used to rub back when he’d been getting regular migraines. Nathan feels the tension release from his neck and shoulders, head lolling back against the grip of Jack’s hands cradling the back of his skull.

“ _Fuck_.”

“See?” Jack works the soap in for a beat or two. “Had a girlfriend back in college, used to ask me to wash her hair; had long curls halfway down her back. Way more high-maintenance than you are.”

Nathan snorts: “Liar.”

Jack slides a soapy hand down the curve of Nathan’s spine and smacks him on the hip with affection and just a little sting. “Don’t be difficult, you.”

“I’m going to tell Sarah you abuse your houseguests.”

“ _Sarah_ abuses the houseguests. Particularly those she thinks are about to take up more permanent residence.”

There’s a pause. They’re still feeling their way with this; it’s only been -- a month? two? Nathan isn’t good with the passage of time. But regardless, it hasn’t been long and they’ve had a few talks but settled nothing, only come back ‘round to where they began which is that they like this, want this, yet aren’t quite sure what this is, exactly. For now.

“I mean --”

“Jack, I--” they both clearly feel the need to clear the air, words colliding as Jack tips Nathan’s head under the spray, tilts his skull back so the shampoo won’t run into his eyes.

They stumble to a mutual stop, Jack’s fingers smoothing through Nathan’s hair, forehead to nape, pushing through the soap and water. Even with his eyes closed, Nathan can feel Carter standing in front of him, knows if he just leaned with his hips they’d be touching hip to belly, thigh to groin.

They’ve done this often enough in the past eight weeks, cleaning up after a long day of averting disaster, or cleaning up after more pleasant pursuits in Jack’s bed, or Nathan’s (or the sofa or Nathan’s office or at least once, embarrassingly enough, the back seat of the Sheriff’s four-wheel drive). They’ll stumble their way into the hot water tired and sore only to discover the alchemy of soap and hot water and clean mingled with the unmistakable scent of skin and proximity, the relief they’re still alive or the pleasant echoes of the sex just enjoyed conspiring to pull them together. Sometimes slow and leisurely: hands skimming, limbs securing, it’s enough to know they’ve washed up here, together. Sometimes desperate and painful: teeth, fingernails, a grip just the other side of comfortably tight. _Thank God you survived_ and _Someday I’m gonna lose you, you stupid--_

He doesn’t realize he’s moved until he feels Jack’s hands slide from the back of his neck to his shoulders, to his forearms, feels the sudden damp heat of the other man crowding him under the spray. Nathan reaches out, reflexively, to grab Jack’s hips and ground himself. They’re -- close. He blinks open his eyes just in time to see Carter dip his head and lick a kiss against Nathan’s collarbone.

“More permanent.” Jack whispers the words against the water rolling down Nathan’s skin, disappearing into the drain. “Yeah. Definitely that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [the following rhyme](http://www.hoover.archives.gov/LIW/pioneering/pioneering_pepin-chores.html), which I learned from reading _Little House in the Big Woods_. 
> 
> As Nathan says, "I was six."
>
>> Wash on Monday,  
> Iron on Tuesday,  
> Mend on Wednesday,  
> Churn on Thursday,  
> Clean on Friday,  
> Bake on Saturday,  
> Rest on Sunday.


End file.
